It’s been two years since the release of Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood and I finally finished it. But that’s the beauty of Backlogged Reviews, it’s our chance to look back at titles we never finished or never got around to playing. It’s like the fact that today marks a year since Skyrim and I’ve yet to touch the game. Guess that will change, but first to get to my review on AC: Brotherhood.

Gameplay

The third entry into the Assassin’s Creed Series find us continuing the story of Ezio Auditore da Firenze from AC 2. This time you can bring a little crew with you as the main mechanic behind AC: Brotherhood is training fellow assassins and helping out fellow guilds. Many of these elements work wonderfully once you figure it out, unfortunately I didn’t use assassins to my advantage until I was almost finished with the story.

Another knock is to the control scheme that has continued to plague the Assassin’s Creed Series. From time-to-time you’ll find yourself randomly missing a spot to climb and falling, jumping off of a platform sideways, or simply doing everything you don’t want to do. Sometimes this cost you Ezio’s life. Sometimes it gets you stuck in this aggravating situation where you’re trying to climb but just can’t get it done.

New Synchronization %’s are a part of every mission now. Each time you accept a mission you’ll be given a stipulation to gain 100% Synchronization. This could range from things such as not getting caught, not losing more than 2 health squares, or only using a certain weapon to kill someone. Most of these are fairly easy and the one’s that require you to beat a mission in a certain time can be repeated after you’ve figured out what you’re doing.

Graphics

By far the best graphics in the series at the time, AC: Brotherhood suffers from little pop-in and has a wonderful draw distance on consoles. Colors are still a bit dark though, as you’ll notice a bit of a brown filter over everything. This doesn’t take away from the game as it keeps an antique look to it.

Story

AC: Brotherhood is full of more and more twists and turns. However the story is pretty similar to previous entries. You’ll still find yourself trying to figure out clues as to why things are going on between the Templars and Assassins. Unfortunately the game still plagues you with doing pointless missions to figure things out. However your main goal is to free Rome of the corruption that is the Borgia. You’ll deal with encounters at the Vatican, you’ll look to kill Cardinals, and overall seem to have an issue with the Catholic religion’s corruption of the government.

To be honest, most of the story seems unimportant and leaves you wanting more until you hit the final few missions. That’s when things take off and you’re thrown back into modern day dealt with finding something you left behind in the past. The story takes an epic twist here, which is sure to make you want to continue Ezio story into Assassin’s Creed Revelations.

Final Thoughts

AC: Brotherhood feels like a half baked sequel to AC 2. Unfortunately it wasn’t worth the full price of admission at the time. AC 2 kept me hooked, and I couldn’t put the controller down. AC: Brotherhood left me feeling empty and in the need of a bigger story with more connection to the player. Ezio is cool, but his witty attitude sometimes leaves me crazing a silent assassin. While it’s still a fantastic game with little issues and not a lot of technical flaws, the story is missing the same flavor that it graced previous titles in the series. AC: Brotherhood tries to be an open world game with a story that is extremely slow in developing. AC: Brotherhood get’s a 7.2 out of 10.